When Salma Hayek got monkeys as her birthday present

Actress Salma Hayek has revealed her “Desperado” co-star Antonio Banderas once gifted her two monkeys on birthday.

Hayek, who turned 49 on September 2, was treated to a birthday cake and a pinata during her appearance on US chat show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and she confessed the surprise did not come close to her best present.

“I had fallen in love with these two monkeys that were supposed to be in the movie ‘Desperado’ and then they got cut out. I was spending all my time with them and they were gonna take them away and I was sobbing because they were actually staying with me. I was devastated,” she said.

“The next day was my birthday and he (Banderas) gave me this big box and my monkeys came out of it. He gave me the monkeys… They lived for a long time and very happily.”

The Mexican beauty called the apes Carolina and Mariachi after the characters she and Banderas played in the cult 1995 film.

“Mariachi was so nice to me, he was kinda in love with me; he wanted to be with me all the time and of course Carolina was jealous. That witch was awful to me; she was so possessive. She’d go crazy when we were hugging, and so we had a little bit of a (love) triangle,” she said.